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Global Britain's strategic problem East of Suez

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2021

William D. James Open the ORCID record for William D. James [Opens in a new window]
William D. James*
Affiliation:
Changing Character of War Centre, Pembroke College, Oxford, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: william.james@pmb.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

Why did Britain withdraw from its military bases in the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia midway through the Cold War? Existing accounts tend to focus on Britain's weak economic position, as well as the domestic political incentives of retrenchment for the ruling Labour Party. This article offers an alternative explanation: the strategic rationale for retaining a permanent presence East of Suez dissolved during the 1960s, as policymakers realised that these military bases were consuming more security than they could generate. These findings have resonance for British officials charting a return East of Suez today under the banner of ‘Global Britain’.

Keywords

British Defence PolicyBritish Foreign PolicyRetrenchmentEast of Suez‘Global Britain’Grand Strategy
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 171 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British International Studies Association

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References

1 The phrase, ‘East of Suez’, dates back to Rudyard Kipling's 1890 poem, Mandalay, and was used in the wake of the Second World War by British and American policymakers to describe the UK's military bases in the Arabian Peninsula, Malaysia, and Singapore. These installations were maintained despite Britain shedding most of its colonies in Africa and the Indian subcontinent. See Figure 1 in the appendix for a map depicting the UK's presence East of Suez in 1964 (Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Hong Kong, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, Aden and the Protectorate of South Arabia, as well as the Trucial States).

2 Howard, Michael, ‘Britain's strategic problem East of Suez’, International Affairs, 42:2 (1966), pp. 179–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The vast majority of British forces were withdrawn from the two key bases at Aden and Singapore by the end of 1967 and 1971 respectively. When the Conservatives were returned to power in 1970, they retained a battalion in Singapore until 1974.

4 Boris Johnson, ‘Foreign Secretary Speech: “Britain is Back East of Suez”’, Bahrain, 9 December 2016, available at: {https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-speech-britain-is-back-east-of-suez}.

5 UK policymakers showed a continued willingness to intervene beyond the Euro-Atlantic region. In the 1970s, the British assisted Sultan Qaboos in quashing a rebellion, having helped bring him to power in a palace coup. In the 1980s, the Royal Navy patrolled the Persian Gulf to protect shipping during the Iran-Iraq War. The UK also committed substantial forces to the First and Second Gulf Wars. Further east, Britain signed the Five Power Defence Arrangements with Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand on the eve of its departure in 1971; the UK typically sends a lone warship or a squadron of aircraft to participate in the annual Bersama Lima exercises.

6 David McCourt views the East of Suez role broadly as a ‘rhetorical construction’. The issue with this argument is that Britain continued to intervene East of Suez after the retreat from Aden and Singapore. The term ‘East of Suez’ largely disappeared from the lexicon after the Singapore withdrawal and only re-emerged when the Bahrain base was announced. McCourt, David M., Britain's, ‘What was “East of Suez Role”? Reassessing the withdrawal, 1964–1968’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 20:3 (2009), p. 458Google Scholar. Where McCourt is on more solid ground is in arguing that the UK maintained a ‘residual great power’ role conception throughout the Cold War. The East of Suez basing strategy (centred on Aden and Singapore) was just one part of that conception, which was then replaced by a greater emphasis on Britain's conventional and nuclear efforts in NATO. McCourt, David M., Britain and World Power since 1945: Constructing a Nation's Role in International Politics (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2014), p. 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar. David Blagden contends that there is substance behind the rhetoric of a great power ‘role’, despite the tensions that this repeatedly causes for policymakers over resource trade-offs. The fact that the UK today remains committed to a force posture with two aircraft carriers when one would be sufficient to ensure great power ‘status’ (the French approach) is testament to that. With regard to this article, Blagden would likely agree that the bases in Singapore and Aden were the principal substance behind the East of Suez role. Blagden, David, ‘Two visions of greatness: Roleplay and realpolitik in UK strategic posture’, Foreign Policy Analysis, 15:4 (2019), pp. 482–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 After the withdrawal from the major bases at Aden and Singapore, the British kept a handful of small military installations, where local opposition was either non-existent or not powerful enough to challenge the British presence. A refuelling wharf was preserved in Singapore to resupply transiting ships. To this day, the British Army stations a battalion of Gurkhas in Brunei under a quinquennial agreement with the Sultan. On the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the British evicted the local population in the late 1960s and constructed a military base, which was then leased to the US. Although nominally under British command, the UK presence there is minimal. In sum, none of these sites were/are on the scale of Singapore or Aden. The slight exception to that was Hong Kong, where the British maintained a modest garrison (fewer than five thousand troops in the mid-1960s) until the handover in 1997. The colony was largely absent from the East of Suez deliberations during the 1960s. Unlike Singapore and Aden, which were designed to be regional hubs for power projection, the Hong Kong garrison's sole purpose was the defence of the colony.

8 See later subsection, ‘East of Suez was sacrificed at the altar of the European Economic Community’ and fn. 93 for more detail.

9 UK National Archives (hereafter UKNA), Kew, CAB 130/213, ‘Defence Policy’ meeting at Chequers, 21 November 1964.

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13 UKNA CAB 148/7, ‘British Policy Towards South-East Asia’, Foreign Office memo for DOPC, 22 September 1964.

14 UKNA CAB 130/213, ‘Defence Policy’ meeting at Chequers, 21 November 1964.

15 For example, one of the planned five Polaris submarines was scrapped, as the government judged that a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent would be achievable with four boats. UKNA CAB 148/18, DOPC meeting, 29 January 1965.

16 UKNA CAB 130/213, Defence Expenditure Review, 8 June 1965.

17 Michael Stewart was appointed Foreign Secretary in January 1965 but was replaced in August 1966 by George Brown, who served until March 1968.

18 UKNA CAB 130/213, Denis Healey, ‘The Defence Review: A Personal Note’, 11 June 1965.

19 UKNA CAB 148/52, Defence Review Working Party memo for DOPC, ‘Reduction by Half of British Forces in Germany’, 3 May 1965.

20 Instead of reducing the BAOR's size, ministers sought to tinker with the financing of the commitment. They entered into prolonged negotiations with the West German government to reduce Britain's balance of payments deficit. See Hughes, Geraint, Harold Wilson's Cold War: The Labour Government and East-West Politics, 1964–1970 (Woodbridge: Boydell/Royal Historical Society, 2009), pp. 100–05Google Scholar.

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25 UKNA CAB 130/213, MISC 17/7th meeting, 13 June 1965.

26 UKNA CAB 130/213, MISC 17/6th meeting, 13 June 1965.

27 UKNA CAB 148/22, DOPC, ‘Repercussions on British policy in Southeast Asia of the Secession of Singapore from Malaya’, 25 August 1965.

28 UKNA CAB 130/239, MISC 76/1st meeting, 15 August 1965.

29 UKNA FO 371/181529, ‘Singapore/Malaysia Quadripartite Talks’, 8 September 1965.

30 US Secretary of State Dean Rusk had earlier warned Denis Healey that ‘at heart, the American people are isolationists’ and would favour retrenchment from Europe if allies like Britain refused to share the burden globally. Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1964–1968, Volume XII: Western Europe, 236. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 7 December 1964.

31 Clive Ponting suspects that Wilson struck a deal in which the Americans provided financial support for the pound (to stave off devaluation) in exchange for the British remaining East of Suez. See Ponting, Clive, Breach of Promise: Labour in Power (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989), p. 54Google Scholar. The reality is that the Americans had a strong interest in the British currency's stability. Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler advised President Johnson that the ‘devaluation of sterling … would have disastrous consequences for the dollar’. See FRUS, 1964–1968, Volume XII: Western Europe, Memorandum from Secretary of the Treasury Fowler to President Johnson, Washington, 18 July 1966. While Washington wanted London to retain its commitments East of Suez, its support for the pound had more to do with the health of the dollar. Given how much the Johnson administration was spending at home (the ‘Great Society’ programme) and abroad (Vietnam) without raising taxes, the dollar was in a precarious position; the US Treasury feared that it would be the next target for speculators. Ponting's theory has been debunked by many historians. See Galpern, Steven G., Money, Oil, and Empire in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2013), p. 272Google Scholar; Dockrill, Saki, Britain's Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice between Europe and the World? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 220CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dumbrell, John, A Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations in the Cold War and After (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2001), pp. 67–9Google Scholar; Young, John W., The Labour Governments 1964–70, Vol. II: International Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 41Google Scholar.

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33 UKNA PREM 13/215, Meeting between and Harold Wilson and Denis Healey, 8 October 1965.

34 UKNA PREM 13/686, Meeting between Harold Wilson, Robert McNamara, George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy, 17 December 1965.

35 FRUS, 1964–8, Volume XII: Western Europe, Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 27 January 1966.

36 Hampshire, Edward, From East of Suez to the Eastern Atlantic: British Naval Policy, 1964–70 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), p. 229Google Scholar.

37 UKNA CAB 148/25, DOPC meeting, 19 January 1966.

38 UKNA CAB 148/25, DOPC meeting, 22 January 1966.

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40 Despite the decision not to build a large aircraft carrier (the CVA01 would have been almost fifty-five thousand tonnes), the UK did not experience a ‘carrier gap’. In 1970, three ‘through-deck cruisers’ (essentially mini-carriers at 20,000 tonnes each) were ordered to replace the ageing Centaur- and Audacious-class ships. The 1970 decision does not detract from the fact that in 1966 ministers judged that carriers would not be necessary, given that the UK would have scaled back its commitments East of Suez by the early 1980s.

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42 Government, HM, The Defence Review (London: HM Stationery Office, 1966), p. 8Google Scholar, emphasis added.

43 Denis Healey, House of Commons, 22 February 1966, available at: {https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1966/feb/22/defence-review}.

44 HM Government, The Defence Review, p. 8.

45 Denis Healey, House of Commons, 7 March 1966, available at: {https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1966/mar/07/defence}.

46 Denis Healey, House of Commons, 27 February 1967, available at: {https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1967/feb/27/defence}.

47 UKNA CAB 130/301, MISC 129/1st meeting, 22 October 1966.

48 Crossman, Richard, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister: Volume II (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1976)Google Scholar, 9 December 1966 entry, p. 156.

49 Ibid., 22 October 1966 entry, p. 86.

50 UKNA CAB 148/25, DOPC meeting, 9 December 1966.

51 UKNA PREM 13/13/1384, Ministry of Defence note to DOPC, 21 March 1967.

52 UKNA CAB 148/30, DOPC meeting, 22 March 1967; UKNA CAB 148/32, DOPC, ‘Political/Military and Economic Implications of Far East Force Reductions’, 11 April 1967.

53 UKNA CAB 148/30, DOPC meeting, 22 March 1967.

54 Patrick Nairne, ‘Witness seminar: The East of Suez decision’, p. 626.

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56 For example, the US Defense Secretary thought that ‘it would be disastrous for HMG to say anything in public about plans to withdraw completely from the Far East in the longer term’. UKNA PREM 13/1455, Meeting between Denis Healey and Robert McNamara, 9 May 1967.

57 UKNA CAB 148/30, DOPC meeting, 26 June 1967; UKNA CAB 128/42, Cabinet meeting, 6 July 1967.

58 UKNA CAB 148/30, DOPC meeting, 3 July 1967.

59 Smith, ‘A pattern not a puzzle’, p. 340.

60 Castle, Barbara, The Castle Diaries, 1964–70 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984)Google Scholar, 27 July 1967 entry, p. 285.

61 UKNA CAB 129/135/5, ‘Public Expenditure: Post-Devaluation Measures’, 3 January 1968.

62 UKNA CAB 128/43/1, Cabinet meeting, 4 January 1968.

63 Denis Healey, House of Commons, 9 November 1966, available at: {https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1966/nov/09/persian-gulf-theatre-costs}; UKNA PREM 13/2209, Telegram (34): ‘Bahrain to Foreign Office’, 10 January 1968.

64 UKNA CAB 128/43/1, Cabinet meeting, 4 January 1968.

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78 This aligns with Stephen Walt's balance of threat theory. States adjust resources to balance against more powerful, proximate, and hostile states. While British policymakers did not think a Soviet attack on Western Europe was imminent, the continent's security was equated with Britain's security. No reductions could be made which might undermine the NATO alliance and, by extension, Britain's core interests. Second-order interests in the periphery, which were becoming more expensive in blood and treasure, would have to be sacrificed. Walt, Stephen M., The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

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80 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia punished Britain for causing regional instability by revoking a £40 million armoured car contract, awarding it instead to the French. Petersen, Tore T., The Decline of the Anglo-American Middle East, 1961–1969: A Willing Retreat (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2006), p. 73Google Scholar.

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85 Ibid., p. 127.

86 Hendrick Smith, ‘Aden is a “Little Vietnam” for Britain’, The New York Times (23 July 1967).

87 Mayhew, ‘Witness seminar: The East of Suez decision’, p. 635.

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91 UKNA PREM 13/1455, Quadripartite Ministerial Meeting, Washington, 20 April 1967.

92 UKNA CAB 148/8, DOPC, Long Term Study Group, ‘Level of British Forces in Europe (draft by the Foreign Office)’, 29 July 1964.

93 In 1975, Foreign Secretary James Callaghan declared that the British were the ‘bridge builders’. Jim Callaghan, ‘Challenges and Opportunities for British Foreign Policy’, Fabian Tract, 439 (1975), p. 10. Prime Minister Tony Blair took up this role conception in 1997, stating ‘we are a bridge between the US and Europe’. Tony Blair, quoted in ‘Tony Blair's five guiding lights’, BBC News (11 November 1997), available at: {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/29353.stm}.

94 Galpern, Money, Oil, and Empire, p. 280.

95 Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, p. 268.

96 Gareth Stansfield and Saul Kelly, ‘A Return to East of Suez? UK Military Deployment to the Gulf’, RUSI briefing paper (April 2013), available at: {https://rusi.org/system/files/East_of_Suez_Return_042013.pdf}.

97 Gavin Williamson, ‘Defence in Global Britain’, RUSI, London (11 February 2019), available at: {https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/defence-in-global-britain}.

98 Vice Admiral Jerry Kyd, quoted in Lucy Fisher, ‘Britain set to confront China with new aircraft carrier’, The Times (14 July 2020), available at: {https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/britain-set-to-confront-china-with-new-aircraft-carrier-v2gnwrr88}.

99 The Cameron and May administrations hailed ‘a golden era’ in UK-China relations. That language has been toned down since Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, although he did originally intend to allow Chinese firm Huawei into the UK's 5G infrastructure, despite repeated warnings from allies. The government reversed this decision in July 2020, amid the fallout from China's mishandling of Covid-19 and Hong Kong. A UK-China Free Trade Agreement may no longer be a top priority.

100 Blagden, David, ‘Power, polarity, and prudence: The ambiguities and implications of UK discourse on a multipolar international system’, Defence Studies, 19:3 (2019), p. 221CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 For more on Britain's interests in the Persian Gulf, see Roberts, David B., ‘British national interest in the Gulf: Rediscovering a role?’, International Affairs, 90:3 (2014), pp. 663–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stokes, Doug and Newton, Paul, ‘Bridging the Gulf?, RUSI Journal, 159:1 (2014), pp. 16–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Paul Newton, quoted in Stansfield and Kelly, ‘A Return to East of Suez?’, p. 13.

103 Admiral Sir Philip Jones, ‘First Sea Lord's Gallipoli Memorial Lecture’, RUSI, London (23 November 2017), available at: {https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2017/november/23/171123-first-sea-lords-gallipoli-memorial-lecture}.

104 This issue will become even more pronounced between 2023 and 2027 when the Royal Navy is likely to suffer a ‘frigate gap’. The ageing Type 23s are due to be decommissioned on an annual basis from 2023, but the next generation of frigates (Type 26 & Type 31) will not enter service until 2027. Louisa Brooke-Holland, ‘Naval Shipbuilding: February 2020 Update’, House of Commons Library Briefing Paper (5 February 2020), available at: {https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8807/}.

105 The operating costs of Carrier Enabled Power Projection are estimated at £357 million per annum. This would amount to almost 1 per cent of the total UK defence budget (£39.5 billion in 2019/20). Note that this figure does not include the operating costs of escort ships. National Audit Office, ‘Carrier Strike – Preparing for Deployment’ (26 June 2020), available at: {https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/007678-001-Carrier-Strike-preparing-for-deployment.pdf}.

106 National Security Adviser Mark Sedwill told MPs that the carriers ‘will almost inevitably be used in the context of allied operations’. Mark Sedwill, Oral Evidence for ‘Modernising Defence Programme’ inquiry, House of Commons Defence Committee (1 May 2018), available at: {http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/defence-committee/modernising-defence-programme/oral/82257.pdf}.

107 House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Beyond 2%: A Preliminary Report on the Modernising Defence Programme’ (12 June 2018), available at: {https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmdfence/818/818.pdf}.

108 Paul Dallison, ‘Mike Pompeo: UK must look after its own ships’, Politico (22 July 2019), available at: {https://www.politico.eu/article/us-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-uk-must-look-after-its-own-ships-iran/}.

109 Louis, ‘The dissolution of the British Empire’, p. 22.

110 In 2019, a poll found that half (53 per cent) of the public are supportive of the ‘Global Britain’ vision. See UK in a Changing Europe, ‘Global Britain’ (3 June 2019), available at: {https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/global-britain-identity-and-britains-influence-world}. Yet there is some ambiguity on the meaning of ‘Global Britain’. Another survey found that 28 per cent of the public did not know what the slogan means. Worryingly for the government, a quarter of the public understand ‘Global Britain’ to mean ‘a nation with strong and secure borders, focused on issues at home’. See British Foreign Policy Group, ‘UK Public Opinion on Foreign Policy and Global Affairs: Annual Survey – 2020’ (June 2020), available at: {https://bfpg.co.uk/2020/06/public-opinion-foreign-policy/}.

111 HM Government, The Defence Review, p. 4.